


From My Window

by RoseDelSol



Series: Harry Potter Short Stories [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8315782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseDelSol/pseuds/RoseDelSol
Summary: The windowsill was precariously narrow, and if she lost balance, a free fall from almost twenty meters expected her.She had always loved this bedroom, high up directly under the roof of the house it provided a look over the back yard and a little way over the city.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from my tumblr

She was sitting on the windowsill of her bedroom and let the warm night air wash over her face.

The windowsill was precariously narrow, and if she lost balance, a free fall from almost twenty meters expected her.  
She had always loved this bedroom, high up directly under the roof of the house it provided a look over the back yard and a little way over the city.

The threatening fall from the window did not remotely worry her. It wasn’t because she was a witch, a being who could hex her way out of these kind of situations, it was because she had lived under the threat of imminent death for so long something as simply as falling out of a window was just not scary anymore.

Nothing was scary anymore.  
She had lost her ability to fear during the war. Too much had been lost, too much had to have been sacrified. What was left to be feared? Pain and torture? She had endured both. Death of loved ones? She had seen it happening, right before her eyes.  
There was nothing left, no surprise, no shock, no challenge nor test that could get a reaction from her anymore.

When the war had been over she should have felt relieved. She knew she should have been overflowing with it, have it pour out of her and wash away the last remainder of the dark. It hadn’t.  
She had been glad that it was over, had felt grateful that no one else would be left to suffer or die from his hands. But to save her it had been too late. The end of war had also washed away any motivation she had had left. It robbed her from the only thing that still made sense in her life - surviving.

She wondered how it could be that all her former classmates returned to Hogwarts and just went on with their lives. She would never accuse them of forgetting about the loss - for no one had come out of this war without losing someone dear, without losing their innocence.  
And still. All her friends and classmates had gone back to school and somehow continued with their lives as if nothing had changed. As if the year of Snape, of Carrows, of war had never happened. How did they manage that, when the very building they were studying in showed the scars of war? How could they walk through these halls and not stop every time they came across a place where once a dead student had lain?

The first years (now in their second year) probably showed the signs the strongest. They were jumpy, some of them still too frightened to actively participate in any class. They pressed against the walls when they walked from class room to class room and sunk low in their chairs, whenever someone looked their way.  
They had seen too much, lived through too much. How could they ever overcome what had happened at Hogwarts in that year?

Many of the older students had dropped out, vanished into the Muggle world, leaving the war and the magical world behind. She could understand them all too well. Had she had anyone to turn to, she would have done the same.  
Surviving in Muggle-London was not easy, and she was still considered underage in their world. She couldn’t just run away… Plus her classmates that turned to the Muggle world mostly came from mixed parentage and had some familiy outside of the wizarding world.  
How relieving it would be to just slip away from all these memories, from everyone trying to forget that the war ever happened.

She remembered the look on all their faces when they had seen the invisible horses pulling the carts up to the castle. Except of course, the horses were no longer invisible, and they were no horses at all. Of course they had all heard the rumours of Harry Potter riding Thestrals to get to the Ministry of Magic in his fifth year. But until they saw the beasts with their own eyes, most had probably believed that this particular part of the Harry Potter adventures were nothing but a figment of someone’s immaginations.  
Thestrals were beautiful creatures, terrifying sure, but beautiful. They had a pair of glowing eyes, a scull for a head and they were so thin it looked as if they were naught but skeletons. She had discovered that she found their presence rather calming. These creatures, living in the shadows of the world, looking so much like messengers between the here and there gave her a sense of peace. They were as lost to the living world as she was.

She had lost her entire family save her aunt in the first war. The second war had taken what was left.  
While she had been staring out of the window, coulds had formed in the sky and were now covering the stars. The wind picked up and she shivered on her narrow windowsill. For a moment she wondered what would happen if she let herself drop out. She shook her head. No. Too many had died in the war.   
Even if she could gain nothing from her life anymore, she owed it to all those who had been lost in these wars to live. Even if it was a shadow, a shallow life. And maybe, maybe, one day she could breath normally again. Maybe one day she would be able to look at the morning sun over the Forbidden Forest and smile. Maybe… Maybe she would find some happiness in Hogwarts after the vacation.

**Author's Note:**

> As I work on reposting these ficlets from my tumblr to AO3 I'm looking at myself and wonder - have I ever actually written a HAPPY Harry Potter story?  
> (yes, yes there are happy stories. later)
> 
> The Potter Books closed on a happy note, leaving out all the post traumatic horror that the survivor's would have to face.  
> This is my take on one of them.
> 
>  
> 
> Kudos & Reviews make the author a happy bunny - talk to me about my stories, and I'll ramble back!


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